


Bloodcaked Lifelines

by SardonicusRust



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Blood and Gore, Comfort, Hand Washing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Murder, Self-Hatred, Zolf being blunt, can be seen as platonic or romantic, cleric of hope, morally gray, soothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23763352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SardonicusRust/pseuds/SardonicusRust
Summary: Hamid needs some help cleaning himself up.
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan & Zolf Smith
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58





	Bloodcaked Lifelines

**Author's Note:**

> Please blame Ben "Everything is simple if you think about it!" Meredith for the horrible morality you're about to read.

Hamid stared at the doorknob in dismay.

It wasn't a focused stare. More of a feverish gaze, sightlessly pointing his eyes in the direction of the shiny instrument. He just had to grab it and twist, and the door would open. Clever device. It had never occurred to him until Sa- it had taken a long time for him to realize what smart little machines they were, doorknobs. Complex and fiddly and so toothsome in their effortless precision. He knew vaults and cars and animatronic devices had to be exceptionally precise in their construction, every piece just so, shaped and slotted together perfectly. But he'd never realized every doorknob he'd ever twisted and thoughtlessly used was so-

He stared at the doorknob. Dismayed. He'd come this far. And now he just had to open the door.

He just had to-

He just- just had to open-

Just grab the doorknob and open-

Reach out and- and-

Grab the doorknob.

Just grab the doorknob.

Lift your hand and grab the doorknob.

Move your arm.

Grab the doorknob.

He wasn't sure how long he stood there, eyes pointed at the doorknob, silently screaming at himself. Long enough that someone finally opened the door. It wasn't him. He was just about to- just… just- nearly there, he was  _ just _ about to open the door.

"Salts below, Hamid," Zolf gasped, clutching his chest. "What're you doin' lurking on the doorstep? Get in here." He dropped a hand on his shoulder and led him inside. Hamid focused on the feeling of weight on his shoulder, of the heft and solidity of that hand.

"Thought you-  _ oh. _ " He swore.

_ There it is _ . He'd finally given Hamid a properly attentive look.

"What happened? Are you okay?"

Hamid nodded. He swallowed, preparing to speak.

_ Speak, Hamid. Say something. Explain this. Tell him Azu is alright. Tell him you're alright. _

_ Tell him who isn't. _

_ Tell him you're fine. I'm fine. Speak up. Talk. Tell him. For gods’ sake, just tell him. Say something! _

He swallowed again. "I'm. Fine. Azu is fine."

"Great, but…  _ skies _ , Hamid, that's a lot of blood."

Zolf led him inside and into the kitchen, sat him down on a chair. Hamid was still trying to find his words.

"There was a thief."

Zolf had a bowl of water and a cloth, but set it aside to give Hamid a check over. This was familiar, now. Zolf often gave everyone a check after battle, so the ritual and flow of movement was soothing to Hamid. It marked an end, a finish, complete.

Light touches at the edge of his jaw to tip his head this way and that, ears, eyes, nose, mouth. Probing fingers over his scalp, checking his head for wounds. Neck, shoulders, two digits pressed to his throat to feel the blood and heart working steadily. He worked in silence, letting Hamid piece himself together.

"We were just- we were- just going to the market. Someone tried to steal my wallet. I felt a hand on my back- I guess. I guess it was just. Going for my stuff. I realized they were just picking my pocket, but I had already- they were already… I just knew someone was sneaking up on me and had touched me."

He drew a breath, deep and shuddering, teeth chattering like he was cold, and continued.

"I just reacted." He spoke so quietly, barely a thread of a whisper, that Zolf wouldn't have heard him if he hadn't been kneeling right in his space.

"You killed them?" Zolf asked bluntly.

"Yes," Hamid whispered, staring at his hands, still held in front of himself, just in the air above his lap. Awkwardly avoiding touching anything. He didn't want to make more of a mess.

They were tools of monstrosity, murderous, stained. He didn't want them near. Except they were attached to him. They were him.

He couldn't get away from the blood.

"Good."

"Wh-  _ no _ , Zolf, I just killed an inn-"

"A what, an innocent person? No, they were a thief. They might've grabbed your wallet in one hand and been going to cut your throat with the other."

"We'll never know what they were, because now they're dead. They might've been innocent."

"They might've been not."

"Any opportunity for them to be  _ anything at all  _ has been  _ ended _ . Murdered. By  _ me." _

"Good."

Hamid slammed to his feet, knocking the chair over. Zolf looked up at him with brows raised.

"That could've been  _ anyone _ . They could've been a starving child, or someone with a starving child, or brother, or mother, or someone just trying to  _ survive _ , and now they're- now I  _ killed _ -"

"They could've been a young woman, bound against her will to service of a vicious mob boss uncle who would use her and follow her and never let her go, and she would never be free of him- or maybe she would've, if only someone would've helped her. Except instead of getting help, she just got killed." Zolf's gaze was steady and unrelenting, his voice clear, saying everything Hamid had stammered and steered around. He spoke the truth, put it right in Hamid's face, unhesitating, unapologetic.

And Hamid was crying. Bawling. Tears running down his face, making tracks in his eyeliner, in the blood that had splattered and dried on his skin. Blood that wasn't his. Blood he'd spilled in an instant, a mere thought.

When had he gotten here? He'd been a student, a banker's son. And now he was… this. A sorcerer, a mercenary, someone who could take a life half by  _ accident _ , as easily as a flinch. He'd reacted and someone had  _ died. _ When had he gotten so powerful, so culpable? The responsibility was a weight he'd somehow gathered, slowly, like collecting stones on a walk. And now he was bowing under the weight and it had crushed someone when it should've crushed him. But he held it up, because he wasn't a student, a soft banker's son. He had left that somewhere, traded it for all this hard, heavy armor, fire and scales, magic, mercy, or lack thereof.

He realized he was only half mourning the dead thief, and had started mourning that soft simple student who'd slipped away somewhere along the journey, and it made him sob harder, angry and guilty and feeling rotten for self-pity and pitiful for being so rotten.

He was alive and he  _ hated it. _

Zolf reached back and stood the chair back up, and Hamid slumped into it, a puppet with cut strings, nothing holding him up anymore. He sagged and sobbed, hands still in front of him, soaked to the wrist in gore, palms up in supplication.

Zolf quietly began to wash them. He dipped the cloth in the bowl of water, wrung it out, and began to work his way from wrist to palm to fingertips in long strokes. The water was hot and silky in contrast to the sticky drying blood and viscera it washed away. It ran over his palms, between his fingers, dripping off his knuckles into the bowl.

"I left. Remember that day? I left you all because I couldn't live with the decisions we were making. I never knew if I made the right choice. I felt guilty. And you know what? That's wrong. You shouldn't feel guilty for being alive. You can't. Because that's worse than being dead. If I'm gonna take a life, I'm not gonna feel bad for living. You can't take and then feel like shit about it. You have to live." 

He spoke plainly as he continued to wash Hamid's hands, now using his thumbs to scrub at the lines of Hamid's knuckles, the lines of his palms, massaging away the caked-in blood.

"I decided I would take a hundred thousand lives and not apologize. If that's what it takes for me to live, then fine. I never chose to be alive. I never wanted to have to fight. But life is what I was given, so I'll fight to defend it, and if someone else doesn't defend their own life well enough, shame on them."

He soaked the cloth in the bowl and wrung it out over Hamid's hands, rinsing, cleansing, the water going darker as Hamid's skin brightened. He picked up a small metal pick and gently scraped it under Hamid's nails, pulling the viscera away, leaving him clean. His own hands looked like a sailor's tools- blunt, scarred, leathery- but worked like a doctor's, with small precise movements, familiar with the body in a careful but methodical way.

"And one day someone is gonna take my life, and I hope they don't feel guilty about it. I hope they take a hundred more along with me," he said grimly.

He rinsed his hands again and started back at the wrists, but this time, he wasn't cleaning the skin. He was working a layer deeper, scrubbing and soothing the flesh beneath. Long pulling motions, pushing into the soft belly of his palm, probing between bones to the taut tendon and muscle between, squeezing and dragging. THe tug on his fingertips was grounding, like all the hurts were being purged from his center out.

Press and pull. Hamid felt empty as he watched him work. Zolf didn’t look up at his face, instead staying kneeling, bent over his hands, focusing on the massage.

The motion was intensely cathartic, and with every pull, Hamid felt himself slowly exhale. It was like he was milking out the tension with every touch, every breath.

A squeeze at his wrist, to hand, heel, dipping between bone, finding every soft-strain-soft part and unspooling the fear and anger and frustration. Teasing it out along the pads of his fingers, to tips, and out. Squeezing at the wrist again, unthreading the knots. Smoothing sinew, soothing strain.

Hamid slumped further, but it was no longer a sobbing collapse.

Pull, press. Squeeze, smooth.

Tugging, rubbing, soothing.

Pull press. Wrist to fingertip. Inside to edges.

Exhale, relax.

Pull. press. squeeze. smooth.

Exhale.

Exhale.

His forehead came to rest on Zolf's, now hunched fully over him, weightless and heavy. At some point, Zolf had stopped washing his hands.

He blinked, and his eyes focused on the bowl on the floor. Clots of black sunk at the bottom, swirls of red slowly fading pink and settling in.

He blinked, refocused. His hands were in Zolf's. Just held. Lightly. Connected. Holding. Grounded, supported.

Blinked, refocused. Met Zolf's eyes, so close to his own. They were green and sure, simple certainty, nothing else. Alive.

"I would see a thousand die before you, and I won't feel bad about it," Zolf murmured.

Hamid closed his eyes and exhaled, letting himself be supported, cleansed.

He let himself be glad to be alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Angst? Hurt? Sasha feels? Moral DUMPSTER FIRE? shhh. Just let the sweet beefy boy wash your hands. Isnt that nice?
> 
> As always, please let me know if you think I missed any tags! Thank you for reading- I've definitely been missing casual touches lately, and I'd feel safe in saying I'm not the only one. So I decided to write some soft boys having some comforting touch. (The angst was not intended, I've no idea how that keeps getting in here. I've barred the windows, locked and braced the doors, stuffed towels in every gap... just can't seem to keep the an(gs)ts out.)
> 
> Thank you to my friendly corvid for the beta, and to .doc for drawing some phenomenal hair touches that dragged my softe writing skills kicking and screaming into the light <3


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